Writing Evaluations

I just finished editing a paper for a friend. It was totally unorganized, repetitive, badly worded, and overly emotional. Forget spelling and grammar. I could have rewritten it for her. It would have taken me two hours to do so. I decided against rewriting even though I know she is so overwhelmed that it is going to be hard for her to rewrite this paper though it needs it badly. If I rewrite it she will forever lean on me to write these papers for her in her employment when she must do field surveys. I am an editor with many years of experience. I am also an author so I know a little bit about putting stories together. I am her friend and so I want to help her. I ask myself in these cases if really it is a help to do things for people rather than teaching them to do it for themselves. It is so important for her to be able to do her job well even writing field surveys. So I made her a list of questions designed to help her write her paper so that it will have a professional edge. I want to share this with all of you who may be writing important papers whether for a job or for college. We all have to be able to express ourselves in print sometimes.

!. A title page is always nice however in some cases it is not allowed.
2. What brought you to this assignment? Where you assigned or did you choose this particular assignment.
3. Who did you meet in this assignment? What were your initial impressions of the situation you are supposed to evaluate?
4. What did you do to evaluate the situation? List the problems involved.
5. Do a step by step suggestion list one problem at a time. Include interviews you may have done with others that might help in the solution to the problem.
6 Summarize and end.
7. Make sure you comply with formating requirements. Colleges and often businesses have their own requirements for formating of documents whether kept on a computer or printed.

note: When writing papers of this kind be sure to leave out all emotional responses. Never say things like “The administrator did not like this idea though I do not know why.” Or “The administrator did not want to hire a new service to do this job though it would be cost affective.” Simply make the suggestion that a new service be hired because of cost. It is so important to remain a little bit aloof when writing any kind of evaluation. Cold hard facts will make you look more professional. Don’t be afraid to be a little boring. If you want to write jokes don’t do it on company time. If you are good at it, write a joke book and put it up on Amazon Kindle Publishing.